With How I Met Your Mother down to its final handful of episodes, show co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas did a Reddit AMA on Monday, answering a ton of questions from fans. We didn't get any game-changing scoops out of the session, but Bays and Thomas did offer a few hints at what the rest of HIMYM's final season had in store for fans along with some trivia about the show.

• When a Reddit user asked which "pretty famous actress" turned down the role of Robin, Thomas reveled that "Jennifer Love Hewitt did The Ghost Whisperer instead of HIMYM!"

• The decision that Barney and Robin would get married was made between Season 5 and Season 6. "Season six was when we really locked in on what the endgame would be," Bays said.

• Both Bays and Thomas repeatedly referred to the character Bob Saget voices as "The Narrator" instead of "Future Ted." Could this mean that Ted is dead in the future and it's actually someone else passing on Ted's story to his kids? Bays did tell one Reddit user that there would be a twist at the end of the series ...

• We could still find out the story behind the pineapple. "I regret that we had the Narrator say he 'never' found out about the pineapple," Thomas said "That said, we may have found a clever way around that, and a way to bring back the pineapple. Stay tuned..."

• Despite their siblings getting married, Bays wouldn't confirm whether or not the characters played by Lucy Hale (Robin's sister, Katie) and Ashley Benson (Barney's half-sister, Carly) would be back during this season.

• Thomas confirmed that the names of Ted's children, Penny and Luke, did come from the episode "Lucky Penny" and Ted's love of Star Wars.

• It turns out that Bays and Thomas actually go back and correct errors in the show before HIMYM runs in repeats. "There's a few little mistakes in the 200th episode that we're going to fix for future airings," Bays said. "The 'couple of years' thing is being changed, and the St. Patrick's Day in April thing... man... that one was all me. Total blind spot."

• Britney Spears asked to be in HIMYM and was actually considered as Stella, a role that went to Sarah Chalke. "I immediately imagined Britney playing Stella and had a minor panic attack, because it's such a big role and needed an proven, experienced actress like Sarah Chalke," Bays said. "But to her credit, Britney liked the character of Abby, and wanted to play that part."

• Thomas also promised that "if we do our job correctly," we're going to cry during the finale. Of course we're going to cry during the finale.

• Part of the finale was shot back in 2006. "We have not changed the very end of series at all. In fact, we shot part of it back in 2006, before Ted's kids got much older!" Thomas said. "We just looked at that footage, which will factor into the end of the series -- it totally worked and was kind of haunting to watch! Shot 8 years ago and it will now help end our series on March 31st, 2014! ... We had to tell both David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca the very end of the series when we shot part of the end in 2006. David remembers it exactly. Lyndsy instantly deleted it from her brain (she knew it was a secret) and literally does not remember to this day."

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Charlie Bielinski

Popculturology columnist. When not consuming as many comic books, novels, films and television shows as he possibly can, Charlie can be found in his free time training as a competitive powerlifter.

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